Sound Healing: Listening to Smile Uses Music as Medicine | New

Morris, 44, lived in Greenwood from his teens to his thirties.

The West Virginia native is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist who creates music for his unconventional imprint for music licensing. This is done through his company, Listening to Smile, created in 2016.

Recently, he has started reaching out to non-profit organizations such as hospices, veterans’ centers, shelters for victims of domestic violence and other places to give music to others in need of. emotional and physical healing, including the Lakelands.

To this day, his company and music help people in 24 states and several countries.

“We want him to help people with jobs and situations that impact mental health,” Morris explains. “A few years ago I was faced with health diagnoses such as multiple sclerosis and colon cancer and other chronic health issues, such as diabetes, as well as not treating grief. associated with the loss of a former member of the group. … I weighed 315 pounds at my heaviest weight. I was a musician with no health insurance and wanted to do something to get better.

Books on topics such as sound healing and frequency music opened up a world of holistic approaches to health for Morris that helped him use his “musical connection to release trauma.”

Over the past two years, Morris has said mental health has been under a magnifying glass.

“People really see that it’s so important not to go through depression, isolation and fear without some kind of self-care,” Morris said. “The music is relatively cheap and the payoff is so great. … I wouldn’t be alive today … without the work of breathing, meditation, and learning to disconnect from stressful situations.

Morris’s success with music and sound frequencies for better health prompted him to start working with yoga studios and wellness coaches focused on mindfulness programs.

From folk music and hip-hop to new age, drums and more, Listening to Smile seeks to deliver a variety of new tracks each month.

“All music is frequency-centric,” Morris said. “For example, it has been shown clinically, through different trials, that music at 110 and 111 hertz relieves anxiety. Next, you need to find the person’s musical tastes: does they like more relaxing mediating music or more upbeat music? You can embed the frequency in the music.

Nowadays, its paying customers get an album every month, with six to eight new songs on each that they can use in their businesses and, in turn, sell the music to their customers if they want to. Music and CD projects can also be customized for customer needs.

A handful of staff, mostly based in Charleston, make up Listening to Smile, offering tech support, new monthly music development ideas and playlists.

Evan Lampkin works with Morris on music, while Dana Kato works with affiliate clients and coordinates breathing work, meditation, and yoga for Listening to Smile events.

“We have a lawyer, Boyd Stough, who works with us and others do corporate business,” Morris said. “It’s a start-up, so people wear different hats. “

Stough, said Morris, is the one who planted the seed to donate the sound healing frequency music to those in need.

Stough is a US Air Force veteran and special operations lawyer from Charleston.

“Because we helped him deal with sleep and pain, he wanted to use music with veterans, to get more help for people with anxiety, depression, mental health, and pain management. pain, ”Morris said. “It’s just started to get bigger and bigger, where we do in Scotland, Ireland and Australia. … We wanted to give each city we work with the equivalent of $ 30,000 in new albums and have the support of the cities to distribute this music into the hands of people who could really use it.

“Healing through sound and the frequency of music are tools that can help people take care of themselves,” Morris said. “… Companies contacted us because of what we are helping someone else. A lot of people who wanted to work with us during Covid didn’t have the money and we worked to find scholarship opportunities to help people financially. “

Morris said he played 25 different instruments. He taught music lessons in the Lakelands during the heyday of Homemade Genius. Morris said he started Homemade Genius after working as a house manager for sites outside of the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.

Morris describes Listening to Smile to other as “science and entertainment working together”.

“Most people don’t know this, but if you use streaming services like Spotify during your massage therapy sessions, you are breaking copyright law if you don’t have permission to use the music,” in your business or for your event, “Morris said.” With our products, our affiliates license our music, so they are covered. They have earning potential by selling music to their yoga students, Or other.

Tenille Bentley, frequency musician and business owner from Perth, Western Australia, first met Morris in interviews with people in the sound frequency field. She met him during a tour of the United States and interviews for a television channel.

Bentley shared her experiences with the Index-Journal via email, writing that in one of her first interviews with Morris, she experienced music that danced “through her lungs and down” through her feet.

From there, the two collaborated to create guided meditation works through adapted frequencies and recorded tracks. Additionally, she and Ian co-created an album together.

Bentley then went on to lead successful workshops and learn to play new musical instruments while working with frequencies she found to help people with everything from physical pain to insomnia and anxiety, with the possibility customize mindfulness programming for children and adults.

Bentley is currently working on a documentary film project, exploring the connection between mind, sound frequency, science and the human body. She interviewed Morris for this film, which is in production and titled “Does Sound Heal?” “

Bentley says she encourages others to explore these topics.

“The worst that can happen is listening to great music,” writes Bentley. “But, if in doubt, look at the science.”